


Moments on a Homeward Path

by lynndyre



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hope, Introspection, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-18 09:02:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2342744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynndyre/pseuds/lynndyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Past the ruins on the hill, through the woods, and following the river north.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moments on a Homeward Path

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redsnake05](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redsnake05/gifts).



Legolas and Gimli entered Mirkwood in the far south, where the fighting had been great. The soil was thick with ash following the wreck of battle, and the forest had been broken to new paths by Lord Celeborn’s army, and by the servants of the Enemy. Arod stepped carefully, and Legolas and Gimli walked much of the way beside him, beneath the remaining branches. Here and there, new green had begun to sprout, and for all the blackened patches of ground, and bare trees, Legolas could feel a change in the very essence of the forest, something that felt indeed as his father had renamed it – a wood now of green leaves, not darkness.

They made for the ruins of Dol Guldur; having heard of the Lady Galadriel's hand in its destruction, Gimli greatly desired to see it for himself. When they reached the great clearing, Gimli approached the rubble, while Legolas stood still, eyes tracing the line of the trees, the sky, the wide expanse that was composed of the startling absence of a threat that had stood all the long years of his life.

Gimli stepped surely among the fallen stonework, deft feet avoiding the wide pits, and those slabs that would shift perilously if disturbed. His voice was awed. "It is fallen. Utterly. The work of thousands of years of wearying time is on these stones, and their mortar is as ash. Yet not a year past it stood unassailable. The Lady’s works are great indeed beyond even my lofty imaginings."

Legolas did not have the words to answer. The songs of power the Lady Galadriel had wrought in that place echoed still in the broken stones. Near eighty years past, the dark had been cast out, and yet remained in part, for the Fortress itself had preserved it. Now it was unmade.

Arod leaned his grey head on Legolas’ shoulder, and breathed warmly against his jaw, undisturbed by the dark ruin which held no lingering menace; none of its former power. Legolas pressed a hand to Arod’s cheek, and let his fingers tangle in his mane.

“My kin lived here, more than an age ago now. My grandfather held his court on this hill, Amon Lanc.” He left Arod’s side, and paced lightly along the outer edge of the stonework, circling the clearing. 

Gimli nudged a fallen stone with his boot, and peered forward, where the earth had gaped, and swallowed the tower from broken foundation to splintered turret. "Nothing in these stones speaks of elven work."

“No, it would not. This was builded long after we had gone, when my king-” Legolas looked to the north. “My father brought all our people above the mountains, and built halls of stone. He knew that we would need them. Yet it is strange to stand here where they lived, and feel no trace of it, as Hollin held echoes.”

Gimli turned then, diverting from his explorations to meet Legolas’ gaze. He brushed his hands together, the dust of Dol Goldur falling from his gloves. Legolas watched the motes fall, hundreds by hundreds floating, tumbling to the earth, and drew back his vision from that focus only slowly.

“It will be made fair again.”

The shadows grew long, but they did not camp upon the hill itself. Instead they slept that night in the company of Rumil, marchwarden and brother of Haldir, and those of his command who remained to guard the recaptured territories. Their songs were of joy, but Legolas heard voices also touched with longing. That night he did not sing.

A matter of days later, they and Arod emerged from the trees into the great semicircle of the East Bight, where pasture and croplands were a patchwork of burned and unmarred earth, and the woodsmen took their measure with caution and then with welcome. A sweet-eyed cow sniffed at the aroma of pipeweed on Gimli’s cloak, and rubbed her face against his beard, great horns scraping against his helmet. He laughed, and let her lick salt from his hand, and they drank fresh milk with their evening meal.

Turning north, hills rose to greet them, and thick wild brambles threatened Arod’s hooves. Legolas turned Arod to the east, and again north and they walked and rode beside the Running River, against the flow of its current, which carried water from the Long Lake down, down to merge with the Redwater, and thence to the Sea of Rhun. Arod tossed his head in the air, and Legolas felt his steps lightened as their homes drew ever closer. Yet worry and anticipation grew in him also, he could see contemplation in Gimli’s mien. 

Long Lake was before them, in the far distance, and beyond it the towers of Dale, over which hung the wide shadow of the Lonely Mountain. Gimli’s eyes tracked over the plain, though the marks of battle were not so stark to his view as to Legolas’, yet it troubled him.

“When first I came here, it was a battlefield. After Thorin’s Company and the five armies met on this plain, I and my mother came to join my father, to rebuild Erebor. We were reclaiming a kingdom I had never seen, and arrived to find only gold and a wasteland, with the dispossessed of Laketown and the remaining army of Dain a strangely mingled people. Even your elves, for I remember your kin working among us, though I marked not names or faces.

“But dwarves do not fear toil, and we had long wished to rebuild Erebor. And did so! Under Dain, we rebuilt mountain, town and lake, and made it to thrive, and Bard’s peoples in Dale made green all the desolation that dragon and battle had visited upon us.” Gimli took a slow breath. “And now we must do so again.”

Legolas is quiet. In lingering beside Aragorn, in staying to aid Minas Tirith, he and Gimli are returning to wood and mountain where repairs have already begun. Hopefulness is called for, and of a surety what they saw before them now was more healed than it had been swift upon the wake of battle.

Yet the memory of home had stayed in his own heart unscarred, until he beheld the trees black and burned away, the forest destroyed and yet remade. For the first time Legolas understood why the Wise termed it the long defeat. For such it has been to Sauron, but such had it proven, in the end, to his own kin, and Gimli’s also.

The pulse of his blood in his ears surged with the sound of the seas, and he shook his head to clear it. 

Beside him, Gimli sighed. “I am glad to come home. But my dreams are now of Helm’s Deep and the Glittering Caves beneath, of building something new, rather than repairing the old. I feel I have grown beyond a single mountain, if such can be said without conceit.”

Legolas smiled then, and his fingers trailed over Gimli’s shoulder, feeling the hard mail beneath. “Even the prickliest of bushes need room to grow.”

Gimli glanced from beneath his helmet, eyes bright with amusement. “Careful, Master Elf, or I shall find unfitting metaphors for you in turn. Perhaps a stalactite, tall and purposelessly glistening.”

Legolas’ peal of laughter made Arod step sideways, and nudge the elf’s body with his proud shoulder. Gimli’s low chuckle joined it as Legolas was forced to step back to catch his balance.

“Enough of these thoughts. Those who love Erebor best are best to restore her. And my own work will go to greatest effect where my heart lies, and both projects will be the better for it!”

And that part of Legolas’ spirit that had panged at Gimli’s earlier words, that feared losing itself to the rush of the ocean, kindled with greater light as he felt the fire of Gimli’s purpose. The wind from the lake blew colder, sharp and welcome across his face, and the late summer green filled his lungs. 

“Indeed, I believe all the world will be better, before you are done with it, my friend. And I also.”


End file.
